My quiet, minimalist work explores the subtle shapes and shadings of the natural world. I prefer to photograph in solitude, under soft light, immersed in nature, suspended in time. My photographs chronicle my sensations and observations. Hiroshi Sugimoto, Claude Monet, Mark Rothko and James Turrell have been important influences on my photography.
Atmographs are impressions of fleeting atmospheric light, distilling air and light down to a single element: color. I fragment and reconfigure the horizon into isolated frames, grids, and segmented panoramas, transforming the sky into ethereal color fields.
Sandscapes explore the intimate patterns etched by waves into beaches along the Northern California coast. I find them in the soft light of dawn, left behind by a single powerful wave from the previous night’s high tide, undisturbed, waiting to be discovered, before they vanish, erased by yet another wave and drawn anew.
Washed Up is a set of portraits. They just happen to be portraits of kelp. Kelp is a persistent feature on Pacific beaches. I don’t usually give it more than a casual glance. But one winter day in January 2019, after a massive storm, I happened upon these evocative arrangements, oddly delicate for having been thrown ashore by the storm’s destructive surge.
The images in my Shore Lines series were made at Weston Beach, a small rocky cove in Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, named for Edward Weston. Although I mostly photograph ephemeral natural events, these ancient rock formations seemed to hold stories, told in the rhythm of long, slow time, bringing me to a deep place of reverence.